Joel Morgovsky - Reading Pictures

Reading Pictures: An Overview

Since the early 1970s social scientists and photographic
critics alike contributed to a growing awareness of the personally
meaningful nature of photographs.

The psychological mechanisms that combine to infuse pictures with the
personal, subjective experience of their makers are not particularly
controversial. The selective nature of perception; the mental
inclination for creating gestalten (wholes) from sensory fragments; the
cognitive schemas that generate top-down processing; the projection of
emotionality and non-conscious thought; constitute a partial list of
basic psychological processes involved in image making that few would
challenge. They operate in nearly all artistic endeavors.

There is much less agreement about how to extract the self-referential
content of photographs. My first formal presentation on the process of
reading pictures took place in 1981 at the 3rd Annual Conference of the
American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery held at Yale
University but other approaches to the same phenomena have appeared
before and since.

A very early approach was that proposed by R.U. Akeret in a book
appropriately titled Photoanalysis (1973). Dr. Akeret described methods
for analyzing family photographs to extract indirect information they
contained about interpersonal dynamics within the family.

A modern therapeutic approach called Photo Therapy by practitioners has
two variations one of which continues on the path marked by Akeret.
Judith Weiser's version of Photo Therapy is based on snapshots and
other family pictures gathered in the course of everyday life. Joel
Walker, a psychiatrist and photographer, uses a set of his own
photographs as projective stimuli. Both Weiser and Walker are
Canadians.

A third variation called Therapeutic Photography (Spence, 1986)
encourages the making of self-portraits which then become tools for
studying body image with the goal of coming to terms with physical
appearance and, consequently, self-acceptance.

Reading Pictures differs because it is a process in which the
photographs under study are those made directly by the client or
subject and contains all manner of content. While it is clear that
personal information finds its way into photographs there does not seem
to be much work being done to develop specific processes for
extracting that same information. The analyses of family snapshots or of
protocols in response to photographs by others do not address the need
for a straightforward approach to "in" and "out". Reading Pictures is meant to close that gap.

For the past 25 years, the techniques I have identified as Reading Pictures
has been shared through a series of lectures to amateur photographers
as part of workshops for helping amateur photographers develop toward
increased personal expression and mature style. There was also a brief
time in 1980 when the process was used as part of a counseling program
for seniors living in a nursing home.

Doing the work of reading pictures is as much a set of attitudes or
mindsets as it is a collection of specific techniques. Six fundamental
mindsets essential to the work will be described here: OTIR, RNA, FA,
AP, TA, and GSL

The first mindset I call Overcoming The Illusion of Reality (OTIR). Most
people look at photographs and become engrossed with the things that
are in them. Ducks in the park, the cute grandchild, the elaborate
church each is related to as if they were actually present. In fact
there is no park, no child, no church at all, there is only the two
dimensional representation of those things, not the things themselves.
Photographs are often transparent in the sense that viewers look
through them to the things they depict. When the photograph itself is
recognized as the relevant object, the looking process is transformed
and placed on another plane.

The second mindset I call The Rule of No Accidents (RNA). In this frame
of mind everything in the photograph is understood as being there on
purpose whether that purpose or intent was known at the time the
picture was made. Because we organize our visual inputs into wholes as
part of the flow of conscious experience, the moment of exposure
represents a decision that things appear exactly as we wish at that
specific moment. When reading pictures this attitude should be
maintained by the viewer.

The third mindset that needed for reading pictures is Free Association
(FA). Used here, free association is a term to denote an attitude of
openness, by the viewer, to the emotional content of images and not a
reference to Freudian methodology. Frequently viewers express feelings
of sadness, fun, awe, poignancy or other emotions when looking at
pictures. If projection is conceptualized as the emanation of
unconscious motives and emotions onto scenes and situations, then free
association, taken in this way, operates as the reverse of projection.

Purposeful use of the Attribution Process (AP) as originally proposed by
Fritz Heider and Harold Kelley is the fourth mindset important for
extracting personal information from pictures. Attributions are guesses
about the causes of observed behavior and are either dispositional or
situational. Reading pictures capitalizes on this natural tendency.
Speculations about the answers to questions like "What does it mean
that a person would take this particular photograph, of this subject
matter, from this point of view, using these methods?" can produce
useful evidence for Reading Pictures.

Thematic Analysis (TA) is a fifth mindset useful for Reading Pictures.
It is not unusual for work by a given photographer to hold close to a
limited number of cognitive and emotional themes. Being alert and
responsive to those themes is important for constructing a working
model of the maker's experiential world.

Genre and Skill Level(GSL) refer to other characteristics of photographs
that can be factored into the work of Reading Pictures. Landscape,
still-life, portraiture, documentary, straight, surreal, are examples
of genre. Skill level is revealed by the degree of mastery over the
medium and the sophistication of topics chosen for study. Higher skill
levels signal clearer intent and greater eloquence.

Skill level opens the door to a related phenomenon I call Levels of
Articulation (LOA). LOA refers metaphorically to the degree of
eloquence encountered in sets of photographs. In the same sense that
writers express themselves with words, sculptors with forms and
painters with images, photographers vary in the degree to which their
cognitive and emotional experience are expressed in their photographs. I
propose that photographers become more articulate as they reach one of
three stages of artistic development: Innocents, Amateurs, and Mature
photographers.

Innocents is a term I use to refer to the millions of camera owners who
take pictures on an irregular basis for chronicling family events,
vacations and special moments. Innocents do not consider themselves
photographers beyond a functional level. Innocents are often the least
articulate photographers. Still, given sufficient numbers of images,
the work of Reading Pictures can still proceed from the work of
innocents.

Amateurs are people who overtly enjoy photography, who join photography
clubs and societies, who read photography magazines and who analyze and
discuss matters photographic. In large measure, amateur photographers
have been my main audience for the last two decades.

Amateurs are generally more articulate than Innocents. Advanced amateurs
are very sophisticated and talented. Even so, there can be obstacles
in the way of getting to know amateurs through their pictures: these I
call the Mask of Homage and the Technical mask.

Since amateurs read about photography and famous photographers they are
often inspired to imitate pictures they have admired in the work of
others. Being successful at making pictures like those by Ansel Adams
or Mary Ellen Mark (for example) amateurs are, consequently, less
personally expressive. They are, in effect, taking someone else's
pictures; hidden behind a Mask of Homage.

Photography is also a technical arena. Cameras, lenses, light sources,
chemicals, film types and now digital technology can become the focus
of an amateur's attention. The acquisition of a new lens, for example,
can launch a photographer into a protracted period of experimentation
that is more about technical mastery and less about personal
expression. Under those circumstances the pictures that result may be
less articulate because the photographer's identity is hidden behind a
Technical Mask.

Those I call Mature photographers consciously use the medium as a means
of creative self-expression. They have developed individual ways of
seeing, personal styles, which permeate most of their work. Mature
photographers are the most articulate and reading just a few images by
them yields fruitful harvests.

Borrowing from the twin realms of psychological practice and photographic criticism, Reading Pictures
is a new way of looking at photographs that enriches the general
experience, assists photographers with self-discovery, and offers new
possibilities for professional application.